New Haven's New Face: The Farwell Tour

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New Haven’s New Face: The Farwell Tour

by Paul Bass | Aug 14, 2009 1:37 pm

(33) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Business/Labor/ Economic Development

New Haven’s outspoken development critic found new buildings to Kroon about — and others to pan — on a tour of the city’s rapidly changing landscape.

Anstress Farwell rode around town to offer thumbs up and thumbs down on the new landmarks that are redefining New Haven, from Yale forestry school’s Kroon Hall to the luxury apartment complex rising atop the grave of the old Shartenberg department store.

Farwell, head of a not-for-profit citizens group called the Urban Design League, has watched closely over the last several years as the city embarked on its busiest construction spree in half a century, since the days of Mayor Dick Lee’s urban renewal.

In the midst of a recession, New Haven is spawning new facades practically by the week. Architects are stamping signature designs for future generations to enjoy. Brand new schools have been popping up in every neighborhood as part of a $1.5 billion rebuilding campaign. Yale is constructing towering edifices throughout campus. Yale-New Haven Hospital is putting the finishing touches on not just a new cancer hospital but also on two nearby block-wide office, housing, and retail developments. The state’s largest apartment tower is rising on Chapel Street. Science Park is being reborn. (Sample all of that, circa May 2009, in this story.)

Perhaps more than any other citizen not on a government or developer payroll, Farwell has kept on top of those plans. She has attended the public meetings. She has reviewed the blueprints and legal agreements. She has pushed for designs that she feels learn from, rather than repeat, the mistakes of the past. Some battles she has won. Some she hasn’t.

She agreed to point out the three new buildings in town she admires the most and the three she most despises, and explain her reasoning.

Themes emerged: She’s not fond of phony claims of “green” or “mixed-use” development; some of New Haven’s supposedly environmentally friendly new buildings achieve just the opposite, Farwell argued. She sees some projects as repeating the mistakes of 1950s and 1960s urban renewal.

Overall, Farwell lowered her thumb on projects that “destroy or reduce opportunity for urban improvement,” ignore their surroundings, and favor cars over pedestrians and cyclists. She raised her thumb for beauty combined with function, for projects “that meet a challenge in a difficult spot and take the time, take the energy, have the expertise, to not only do a good building, but do something that really improves” New Haven.

Farwell’s is one point of view. Feel free to offer your own choices in the comments section at the end of this article, and to offer suggestions for future possible tour guides.

For the record: the Independent disallowed two of Farwell’s initial choices for the purpose of this new-construction tour: the downtown Gateway Community College campus (thumbs-down list), because it hasn’t been built yet; and the thumbs-up Yale University Press addition on Temple Street, because it’s already 16 years old.

Come along for the ride.

Thumbs Up: Kroon Hall

Farwell fell in love with the new home of Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies when she first saw architects, water quality engineers, and system managers describe their ideas at a City Plan Commission hearing.

Kroon Hall, which replaced a dingy old power plant, wowed environmentalists when it opened this April. It uses 50 percent of the typical energy for a building its size, thanks to solar panels and hot-water heaters, geothermal power, and natural lighting. It harvests and cleans rainwater in a pond, then reuses it for toilet flushing. (Click here for details on recycled materials and other eco-friendly techniques employed in the construction process.)

Farwell applauds all that. What strikes her even more is that … the building’s beautiful.

From the minute you look at it, through the heady experience of walking inside, Kroon Hall transports you. It transported Farwell.

“Unlike a lot of LEED-certified buildings,” Farwell gushed, “this one actually has astounding architectural merit.”

Click on the play arrow to follow along with her as she describes how Kroon’s exterior carves its own colorful, inviting space in between two more forbidding Gothic academic buildings. How the raised front courtyard offers an open view of the “Yale Whale” (Ingalls Rink) and the 19th century homes across the street. How Kroon’s pale mustard stone with oyster-color trim is in just the right proportion to the mahogany-tone wood, while the curved top playfully responds to the arch of the Whale.

“Human beings need to look at lovely things,” Farwell reflected. “Pleasure, relaxation, making you feel like you’re part of a place in a community — this building performs all of those pious functions of architecture, of being fitting, of having real beauty, and it meets all of the new [environmental] performance standards.”

The set-back building, the steps leading to the front courtyard, all “make it clear that this is a place” you walk into, Farwell observed.

So she did — into a bright, wood-paneled front corridor with benches in the center, up two flights of a wooden-walled staircase leading up to a top floor overlooking the “meditative” grassy courtyard of Yale’s Science Hill. In the process, and along with its energy-saving design, the new building manages to “echo” the forestry school’s history, in Farwell’s words.

Thumbs Down: IKEA

Kroon Hall made for a restorative follow-up to an earlier stop on the Farwell tour: the Ikea parking lot on Sargent Drive.

Farwell wished she could see the pine trees and the lawn that used to be on that land, behind the old Pirelli building. IKEA came in, paved it for a parking lot, and plunked a huge yellow and blue box there.

What city planners saw as a tax-producing shopping mecca right off the highway, Farwell views as a tragic missed opportunity. She would have liked to see Gateway Community College build its new campus there, preserving the landscaping, putting classrooms inside the historic Pirelli building rather than letting it rot from disuse, as IKEA has.

Farwell hasn’t gone inside IKEA. But she knows enough about the place, she said, to conclude that its business model dovetails with its architectural crimes.

“I’ve never shopped there. I think it’s a false environmentalism that the store promotes. They say they use sustainable wood. Many organizations are investigating” the claims, she said.

“The building itself is the cheapest kind of big box. There’s no difference in the business model and the building between IKEA and Wal-Mart. It’s a big box with a big parking lot. It’s based on driving to the store. It’s the kind of development that could be plopped down anywhere.”

Thumbs Up: Clinton Ave. School
Clinton Avenue School was already plopped down next to I-91, a ballfield, and a public housing project in Fair Haven. When the city rebuilt it based on architect Ken Boroson’s design, Farwell said, it did everything right that IKEA did wrong: It made the school fit in, and it greatly enhances its surroundings.

She praised the decision to keep the old part of the school intact. Unlike a low-level apartment complex across the street that “cringes” in the shadow of I-91, the main school building offers a large wall to respond to the highway. “It faces the noisy and unpleasant part of the neighborhood. It’s strong enough to be a force that dominates it,” she noted.

From the main school building, Boroson’s addition stretches out toward the ballfield at a lower grade, leading people to an attractive glass rotunda and then the open field.

Meanwhile, a new walkway — Farwell especially praised that walkway — takes people from Clinton Avenue, past the school and a new park, directly to the rebuilt Quinnipiac Terrace Housing project, and down to the river.

“This is the best of integrated planning,” Farwell said. She noted that the city’s parks, traffic, engineering, and school departments all needed to work together. And they did.

Thumbs Down: Lot E

Working together is something the pieces of “2 Howe St.,” commonly known as “Lot E,” definitely do not do, in Farwell’s view.

She started her tour there after coming from an eye doctor’s appointment. She saw an upside in needing to wear dark glasses because of the doctor’s visit: “It’s good to be half-blind when you’re looking at this.”

“This” is a block long collection of offices, storefronts, apartments, and parking. Especially parking. Despite the dark glasses, Farwell couldn’t stop glaring at the new parking garage.

That’s technically “mixed-use” design, a goal pretty much all planners and critics share in the aftermath of the urban renewal period. It means mixing lots of stuff people use all together to create a vibrant street and pedestrian-oriented space.

In practice, 2 Howe St. mocks the idea of mixed-use, Farwell argued. It keeps its pieces separate: the offices facing Howe Street, the apartments facing Frontage Road, the five-story parking garage towering over Dwight Street and Legion Avenue.

“If you look at it, it’s a little bit like saying you make a souffle with eggs, milk and flour,” Farwell said. “With a souffle, you kind of combine them, then it rises.” In this case, “You have the milk. The eggs. The flour. There’s no integration.”

And that garage — it dominates the whole project, Farwell complained. It makes the block more dangerous for kids walking to school. It kills street life. It champions cars over people and bicyclists. It’s ugly, a horizontal slab that makes no effort to integrate into the curve of the road beside it. And it has no relation to the other nearby new buildings connected to Yale’s cancer hospital.

She said the project a mirrors the mistakes of the Dick Lee urban renewal era, when the Route 34 Connector replaced a once-bustling neighborhood with a speedway for cars. A “continuous policy of urban planning that is continuing to create a degraded environment,” she called it. She rued the failure of an effort to submerge fast-moving connector traffic below ground until Howe Street, then limiting it to one road, rather than the current two that choke off the long median between them.

Thumbs Down: 360 State
Farwell sees history repeating itself, sadly, in another project down the road: 360 State, the apartment and retail complex rising where Shartenberg’s once dominated the block north of Chapel Street between State and Orange.

The project’s name is apt, Farwell said: It brings New Haven “360 degrees back to the redevelopment era” when it comes to “how a building relates to its setting.”

The size of the project doesn’t bother her, she said. (It’s alternately described as 32, 31 , or 29 stories.) Rather, she’s outraged at how the project will, in her view, welcome extra cars in and out every day at the expense of walkers and cyclists.

As with “mixed-use” development, this project offers an Orwellian version of the in-vogue term “transit-oriented development,” Farwell said. The city and developer call 360 State “transit-oriented” because it stands across the street from a newish commuter train station. That’s supposed to help renters ride the train to work rather than walk.

In practice, Farwell said, the building will discourage people from taking the train and crossing State Street to downtown jobs. That’s because the project’s design calls for clipping the State Street median to make way for a new turn lane and placing a circular driveway at 360 State for UPS trucks and drivers dropping off groceries or picking up people.

Meanwhile, the city agreed to widen Chapel Street and narrow the sidewalk to accommodate more cars — further squeezing out walkers, Farwell said.

That’s all bad for the environment, she argued, despite the project’s green rep.

The apartments may be renting for as much as $5,000 a month when the project is completed. Meanwhile, Farwell said, the “platform and slab “ design represents the “cheapest approach to construction.” Then there’s the outdoor space the project offers the public — six stories up. That means it’s not really a public good, but a “private luxury to be used only by 500 people, not thousands.”

Farwell’s final pronouncement: This is “the art of the deal, not the art of the city.”

Thumbs Up: 804 Chapel

But there’s hope — right across the street.

You might have noticed it. It’s a modest, three-story white building with ground floor retail. It stands at the corner of Orange and Chapel.

To Farwell, it’s a beacon.

The building’s owner, Bill Christian, engaged Studio ABK to design a rehab of the old building. What a great job they did, said Farwell, pointing out the work that’s just getting underway.

They’re preserving the building’s original design, with varied details above the windows at each floor. Farwell noted how the facade blends into the street. It wraps each of the designs above the windows gracefully around the corner, hearkening to an age when “corners were considered the premier spot of downtown buildings.”

Those designs become more playful with each story, “inviting you to look at the sky,” Farwell noted. Each floor has a different feel. “People look at that,” Farwell said, “and say, ‘foot, body, head.’”

She motioned to the flattened curves at the building’s top, the cleaned and repaired ceramic tile, the custom-cut marble at ground level. The owner is putting in recessed lights there that will illuminate the street not only for the occupants, but also for passersby. In other words, the public.

“Rescuing a building like this isn’t easy. This has the same spirit of a building that is jazzy. [The owner] understood this building,” Farwell remarked.

“It started off great in life. It was part of New Haven’s great downtown era, when people were building to a proper scale.”

And it shows that, in 2009, people can still build that way in New Haven.

Comments

posted by: westville on August 14, 2009 2:00pm

While I, too am appreciative of much of the great architecture sprouting up all over New Haven, I just can’t keep my mouth shut because she is just so ... predictable. I just *knew* she was going to give Ikea a thumbs down. Admittedly, there is plenty of ugliness to go around at Ikea, but Ikea also makes affordable furniture that is accessible to the masses. We can’t all shop at Ethan Allen or Fairhaven Furniture, Ms. Moneybags. Or would you rather we sit around on our cardboard boxes? Also amazing that she passes judgement on Ikea despite never having been inside. I am not trying to be an Ikea apologist, but be reasonable! This attitude is just so provincial. Not everything that lives in a big box is entirely horrible. The other big box she pans—Walmart is also not a bastion of employee rights, but at the same time they are making some significant pushes in terms of solar power and energy efficiency. Not everything is clearly black or white, even though a lot of privileged white liberal democrats would like it to be that way.

posted by: jawbone on August 14, 2009 2:15pm

Wow, Anstress Farwell, after all these years, is a newly minted NHI celebrity. This makes 3 NHI articles prominently featuring her and her opinions in 3 days. Whats that all about?
I appreciate Ms. Farwell’s enthusiasm as a community activist and her years toiling at the fringes of the cities decision making machine, BUT, I do not happen to agree with most of her opinions. I personally find most of her new-urbanist, anti-development opinions to be retrograde and unhelpfully nostalgic.
My personal opinion, Kroon Hall is great, in concept, and the new residential college by Yale is helplessly unimaginative. Its impressive to see the great Yale architecture machine produce both…

posted by: anon on August 14, 2009 2:26pm

Worst in New Haven? Think again. Given the potential it destroyed, the Lot E development is the worst new building I have seen anywhere in the United States.

posted by: Norton Street on August 14, 2009 3:32pm

Westville,
You really just don’t get it. I will try to help explain it to you, but when you’re starting from zero it can take more than what I can type within reason in this forum to wake you up.
The problems with IKEA have to do with the living arrangement of the majority of Americans, which has been around for the last 60 years. Most people live completely out of scale. Our homes are on lots that are too large, our houses have too much interior space, work is too far from housing, shopping is too far from both, and cars become a necessity. There are too many cars which create too much noise and traffic. So instead of having a modest home with 1 living room, a dining, room kitchen and bedrooms and then having an enjoyable public realm with parks, quiet streets and beauty that act as “shared outdoor rooms”, people have a family room, a furnished basement, a room in the attic because cars make the public realm so miserably unusable so people feel that they have to take those outdoor spaces that once were usable and bring them inside and privatize them. Then when it comes time to put furniture in all these rooms, you “have” to go to a place like IKEA because you can get more for less. But if people lived in a more modest way, they could buy more expensive furniture because they wouldn’t need as much. This is the same for food, clothes, and everything else we buy in excess due to our out-of-scale lifestyles. This is a very generalized view and it most specifically applies to post-1950s suburban thoughts on living, but since the majority of people in this country live in suburbs, what i’ve said applies to mainstream thought.

As for the article, its great to hear about these buildings from someone who wasn’t directly involved in them and isn’t trying to “sell” the buildings to us but rather speaks about them honestly.

posted by: jawbone on August 14, 2009 3:55pm

Westville,
I don’t know Ms. Farwell personally, but I do know this. She lives neither a privileged nor a wealthy life.
Although I do not agree with her most of the time, I appreciate the fact that she is out advocating for a better, more livable city for ALL of us. She sits, seemingly awake, through scores of late night city hall bullshit sessions for little or no compensation or recognition.
Quite often, I wonder what it is that she is thinking. But in the end, I am glad we have people like her in this town.

posted by: Tom on August 14, 2009 4:16pm

Norton Street,

Ease up on IKEA, you’re making the perfect the enemy of the good.

IKEA benefits a lot of folks. I worked there for a while and can tell you that it was the only real option for a lot of people. Some of the biggest customers were not, as you suggest, materialistic suburbanites with 4,000 square-foot homes, but rather expectant mothers and young families starting off, trying to get basic furniture on a tight budget.

IKEA also provides jobs for a lot of New Haven and area residents. The company is known for treating its employees well. They also provide quality health care to their workers, even the part timers.

So yes, IKEA has ugly buildings and some of its furniture isn’t very good. However, bashing it is pretty elitist. It would be nice if everyone could afford high-end furniture produced locally, but that isn’t the case, which is why we have places like IKEA.

posted by: CHris O on August 14, 2009 6:09pm

This article hints at a need for New Haven. Broader conversations about Architecture, Urban Planning, and how space and people interrelate. There are only a few who are brave enough to pass judgment for fear of being judged themselves or worse, loosing a prospective client.
Bravo- Anstress and the Design League for starting and continuing this needed conversation. If you don’t ask for better buildings and spaces, don’t complain when your city is disgraced.
As far as I can tell the City does its best managing this wave of construction with ever limiting resources. What I often see missing is the public voice with the talent and training of an urban planners or architect. The New Haven Independent might do a regular section on each proposed project of significance. The comments might get the investors attention.

posted by: juli on August 14, 2009 6:26pm

she criticizes the loss of the median in the center of state street?

i hate that median! i think it is part of what makes that stretch of road feel like you are in no-man’s-land. it seems like you are at the end of the city, about to cross to the “other side of the tracks”. and i think it adds to some driver’s perceived need to accelerate onto the highway to get the heck out of town.

i am hopeful that 360 state will indeed increase foot traffic, and make that part of chapel feel more connected to wooster square and beyond.

posted by: Norton Street on August 14, 2009 6:58pm

Tom,
Everything stems from the problem of living out of scale. Take the 360 State project for example. It takes a massive lot and builds a massive building on it. What should have been down, is break the lot up into much smaller parcels where 3-5 story buildings with retail on the ground floor and housing above can provide space for small scale local businesses and people of moderate incomes.
Besides, IKEA is designed with the assumption that people bring their cars, park, buy, stuff their car full of stuff then leave. This creates a problem for someone like me, who does not drive. What would be better than a humongous store that is in the middle of no where surrounded by highways and high speed roads is many locally owned furniture stores that have neighborhood ties. That way I could go to one of the local stores with a handcart and get a few pieces of furniture to wheel back to my place of living.

I’ve been accused of being radical for my thinking on many occasions. But all I am doing is describing an accurate portrayal of what New Haven was like a century ago. There’s really nothing original about what I’m saying, just look at a history book and see what a vibrant city this was when people lived in a proper scale.

posted by: john on August 14, 2009 7:29pm

@nortonstreet “Our homes are on lots that are too large, our houses have too much interior space…”

Have you not noticed that IKEA has so much to offer for small, urban, space-efficient dwellings. This is like “their thing”, man. I understand the criticism in general and the fact that they may not be as green as they might lead one to believe—but the scale of the furniture at IKEA is by and large human, not gargantuan.

Plus, it’s easier to recycle batteries, plastic bags, and fluorescent light bulbs there than, say, anywhere else in the city. They were promoting CFLs looong before home depot and the like carried them.

posted by: Westville on August 14, 2009 11:52pm

Norton Street

While I don’t particularly like your condescending attitude, I agree with you that many people live out of scale. But I don’t think that creating a villain out of Ikea is the answer. And instead of criticizing individuals who are just trying to make ends meet by buying furniture that they can afford, why don’t you take a stab at the policies that have constructed these environments? Ikea succeeds in other countries as well, where the majority of shoppers do not drive to the store. So the “big box” phenomenon was not created by Ikea. I have lived in London and Berlin, and people there live on a more human scale than we do here, yet they also frequent Ikea. They take public transportation there. There are practicalities in this world. Not everybody can be as saintly as you and live without a car or never shop at Ikea. Have some empathy. There are reasons people shop at places like Ikea. If you don’t like it, you don’t need to ever shop there, but don’t ruin it for everybody else.

posted by: Mr. Black on August 15, 2009 1:21am

Hat, scarf, jacket… two thumbs down!

posted by: Anstress Farwell, New Haven Urban Design League on August 15, 2009 1:33pm

Juli:

I agree with you about the median - and so does the city. The city is now studying the feasibility of removing the median in order to make State Street a regular downtown street and to recapture usable building lots. The east side of State Street was demolished and the street was widened in one of the last Redevelopment projects. This area makes up a big proportion of the 65% of downtown was destroyed.

Here’s the corner of State and Crown in 1967:

http://www.cthistoryonline.org/cdm-cho/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/cho&CISOPTR=14242&CISOBOX=1&REC=8

The city lost historic buildings, tax base, and the critical mass of businesses needed for viability. It got the median, unbuildable lots and a no-man’s land designed for traffic “through-put.”

What I object to is the plan to cut through the median opposite the entrance to the Government Center / 360 State parking garages, and install a traffic signal there, mid-block - right across from the commuter train station. Thousands of people using the commuter train station and Wooster Square residents walk through this one-block area. The median cut-through and the plan to install a semi-circular driveway at the front entrance of 360 State, gives priority to vehicles and creates hazards and inconvenience for pedestrians and bike riders.

posted by: Tom on August 15, 2009 2:03pm

Norton Street,

Again, I would suggest you learn about the way IKEA does business before you continue to pass judgment. It is on a bus line and is accessible by bike from virtually anywhere in New Haven. Before IKEA opened a store in Brooklyn it was common to see people from New York take the train in and catch a bus or cab to IKEA. The store offers a delivery service and truck rentals for those customers without access to a car.

A lot of people do drive there, but IKEA certainly does not expect, nor require anyone to do so.

Your discussion of scale is a bit ham-fisted. Of course some people shop at IKEA and fill their houses with unnecessary crap, but many others simply like the store because it sells things at prices they can actually afford. Small human scaled buildings would look nice, but there are other things to consider besides how pretty a building looks.

Your views aren’t radical, they’re reactionary and part of a knee-jerk distaste toward anything that’s not part of the pre-WWII urban fabric. Just because a lot of bad things came out of post WWII planning does not mean that everything new is bad.

I and most people I know would love to do more shopping at neighborhood furniture stores, but are not wealthy enough to do so. For many working families in New Haven it’s not a question of buying their furniture from IKEA vs. a local store, because the more expensive local stores were never a real option for a lot of people in the first place.

This sort of all or nothing approach to planning is why the field has the image problem it does, even though planners have been doing a lot of good work lately. Many people consider planners and their ideas elitist. It’s not hard to see why when you have people from the planning community bashing a store that has brought several hundred jobs with benefits to the city and sells things that people seem to like buying.

Certainly, IKEA is not perfect - it’s an ugly building surrounded by a parking lot, but it also seems counter productive to pick on a store that provides jobs, affordable products and does a pretty decent job of being a good corporate citizen in the city.

posted by: Jack G on August 16, 2009 2:02pm

I agree w/Chris O: the Urban Design League, and before that Friends of Hillhouse Avenue and before that Friends of City Hall have braved waters that the NH Preservation Trust avoided. Had it not been for this activism, the City Hall addition would have been without the original staircase from the demolished Annex, and Yale U’s about-face and string of successful rehabs and adaptive reuses may not have been so forthcoming following the court case re demo of Maple Cottage and relo of 88 Trumbull to a New York State location. Also good that the Independent is fostering this healthy dialogue.

posted by: lynne on August 16, 2009 8:47pm

It’s interesting to see all of the interest generated on the topic of IKEA. I have shopped there, bought a few things and gotten on the yellow line that kept me walking through endless departments to get out of the building - I still haven’t mastered how to get in and out in a timely manner. A design feature?
My understanding of Anstress’s comments is that IKEA took a prime section of real estate as well as an historic building and made a HUGE parking lot and a building that does not interest her architecturally. The parking lot isn’t even used to near capacity - notice how much pavement there is and how few cars are there. Meanwhile, YNHH builds a huge parking lot by the air rights garage - just up the road- that the neighbors did not want because it increases vehicle traffic endangering pedestrians (Career High School) and causes pollution that makes people sick (heart attacks, strokes, cancer, premature death, diabetes, lung disease and stunted lung growth in children). Contrast this with other communities that are revitalizing their city with dwellings, walkways, bike-ways, stores and small business that support their universities (Cleveland, for example). We don’t gain anything by building large parking lots that encourage people from out of town (80 % of people employed by Yale do not live in New Haven) to drive to the heart of our city. We need to encourage people to want to live in our urban areas and be healthy while doing so.
I like art and interesting buildings; I think our city benefits from having interesting buildings. The important thing to me, however, is that development be done in a way that promotes livable areas: clean air, open space, stores within walking distance and safe streets. That’s what I would like to see for New Haven’s future and what would keep me living in the city.

posted by: Patricia Kane on August 17, 2009 10:58am

Farwell is right to turn thumbs down on projects that “destroy or reduce opportunity for urban improvement,” ignore their surroundings, and favor cars over pedestrians and cyclists.”
As a recent transplant to New Haven, aside from the cultural opportunities and ethnic diversity, a big part of the appeal was the opportunity to limit my use of a car and to have more opportunities to walk and bike.
Like Boston, where I grew up, New Haven has an historic green center, interesting streets and a fair amount of street life, not to mention the great museums, theaters and restaurants. This is what a city should be about.
Biking is more of a challenge because cars still rule the roads and the thinking of city and state officials. More needs to be done to encourage people like me to bike more, which I’ll do if there are racks at various destinations and if I feel safe on the roads - which I don’t.
Personally, my vision for New Haven would involve a Wooster Square type park in the Rte 34 corridor rather than more boxes for transients.
Thank you NHI for covering this topic.
We all need to take ownership of the decisions that either improve our environment and lives or drive us to a more liveable place.

posted by: anon on August 17, 2009 11:24am

I agree, Patricia. I’d say the same about walking. New Haven is a small city, some sections have the same population density as Brooklyn or Boston, and everything is in close proximity: Imagine what the community could look like if people felt safer walking and biking everywhere!

You would think our road designers would get your point, but much of the current work going on in New Haven pretty clearly shows that they don’t.

posted by: Jay on August 17, 2009 12:01pm

We get it, you don’t like cars.

posted by: streever on August 17, 2009 2:30pm

Lynn, etc/etc

While I don’t even own a car and use a bike/trailer to do my shopping, I agree with Tom (another active cyclist) in that people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

He makes excellent points about affordability, access, and economic growth.

Simply put, cities can’t thrive on trendy coffee shops & public parks. As much as I love these things (well, the parks, at least) I am so grateful to Ikea for the excellent work they’ve done in improving our city.

The sheer amount of $$$ generated for New Haven with a virtually non-existant traffic impact on my life thanks to Ikea is excellent.

While the Urban Design League & other amateur planners can do good, they can also promote elitist ideas that are bad for our communities, and do so with alarming regularity, in their obsession with “criticizing everything”. If things simply aren’t “perfect”, they love to just toss the whole bit out of the window.

NortonStreet:
I’d agree with Tom. Your ideas are far from revolutionary and are ultimately elitist & reactionary. I’m glad you are “going into school” and not a graduate—that means you’ll learn to temper your strong opinions. (In the meantime please don’t do any harm in your municipal position)

posted by: Betsy Sledge on August 17, 2009 2:35pm

Kudos to the New Haven Independent for this series that has generated healthy dialogue on urban design and to the Urban Design League for working so hard to keep New Haven a livable city—one that we all can enjoy, no matter what our pov.

posted by: Bruce on August 17, 2009 10:01pm

Ikea sells furniture, so obviously it is going to be almost exclusively visited by people with cars.

I was extremely displeased that they ruined a significant Marcel Breuer building. There is now a shameful footnote at the Breuer exhibit in the Smithsonian showing how the building was modified and is now used as a tacky billboard.

That said, I actually love Ikea. You have to be careful what you buy, because some of it is cheap junk, but some of it is good quality that is inexpensive just because assembly labor charges are eliminated. New Haven is an ideal location, with a large contingent of wealthy transient students. It is a good use of that property. Too bad they couldn’t have found a property on that strip that wasn’t already occupied by one of the more interesting and renowned buildings in the city, but that is now history.

posted by: brickbat on August 18, 2009 4:24am

“What city planners saw as a tax-producing shopping mecca…”

What they “saw” as tax producing? It IS tax producing, in a city that has a desperate need for Grand List value.

And 360 State Street will “welcome extra cars in and out every day at the expense of walkers and cyclists” because “a new turn lane and placing a circular driveway at 360 State for UPS trucks and drivers dropping off groceries or picking up people.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. First, when was the last time ANYONE wanted to build 30 stories in this city? Secondly, you can barely turn from State onto Chapel now because of traffic—she thinks making it worse is somehow encouraging to bikes and pedestrians?

Gee, what a surprise that the two big economic development pieces are the ones that are denounced most vigorously. Guys, this city needs revenue—for schools, cops, human services, etc. You can’t just stand around saying you wish the world were more beautiful and if we’re really, really good everybody’s going to ride bikes.

That’s fantasy land.

posted by: Ned on August 18, 2009 8:06am

That Breuer building is ugly - ask yourself: would you want to spend time in that piece of crap building? I guess no one else does either, which is why it’s sitting there empty like a zit on the face of New Haven. I’d like to see all of the brutalist, inhumane, ugly, modernist buildings in New Haven meet the same fate as the ugly, thankfully imploded and demolished, POS New Haven Coliseum.

posted by: streever on August 18, 2009 8:54am

Right on Bruce & Brickbat—
and funniest post of the week goes to Jay.
“We get it, you don’t like cars”. I laughed a little too hard while drinking my morning coffee :)

posted by: anon on August 18, 2009 11:13am

Streever and city officials see the issue of economic development as black and white. I don’t think this is really about criticizing IKEA. Rather, there are ways to design IKEA that make them healthier, better additions to a city than just a big box. New Haven is far behind the curve, but will catch up someday.

posted by: anon on August 18, 2009 12:52pm

It is sad to see that commenters on this thread, some of whom appear to hold city offices and commission appointments, are calling engaged citizens, in their words, “elitist, reactionary, amateur planners.”

The fact that our city officials would be so extremely condescending towards engaged citizens volunteering their time for civic betterment, such as Lynne, Patricia, Norton Street, and Anstress is a very bad sign for our democracy. Who is truly being “elitist” here?

It seems that these city officials have no idea what planning and civic engagement is all about, nor have they studied any planning history, or even local history of why New Haven looks the way it does today. New Haven was mostly designed and built by everyday local residents, not by planners, architects or city officials.

I have never seen an Alderman, State Elected Official, or “Professional” planner (many of whom have also criticized developments like IKEA and 360 State in publications such as the Hartford Courant) make such inane comments.

Perhaps the Mayor should offer some kind of training to his appointees?

posted by: streever on August 18, 2009 6:17pm

Anon:

Perhaps you misunderstand my role. I’m a volunteer on a board. I have every right to have opinions.

Norton Street is not a community activist. Norton Street is an anonymous handle on an internet board who has advocated beating young teens with a baseball bat.

Why don’t you call the mayor and let him know I gave her a hard time on an internet message board?

FYI she serves on a city board herself, so I’m not sure whose behavior you should be really concerned with.

posted by: streever on August 18, 2009 6:20pm

and mark, besides your ridiculous bluff, you should really consider the reality of what you’re saying.

Remember that people who serve on boards are every bit the volunteers that Norton/et all are, but unlike them, we pony up our personal time & serve—instead of sit on the sidelines anonymously complaining as you do.

posted by: anon on August 19, 2009 7:22pm

So I cut through your rant about various anonymous comments to come to this conclusion: You feel that 1) city commissioners have no responsibilities to the public because they aren’t paid, and therefore can personally insult any citizen they choose using the words you used above, and, 2) since you “officially” pony up service (instead of just engaging citizens at a face-to-face level, or at hundreds of neighborhood meetings, say), your ponied up time and point of view is more important than those of other engaged citizens? Interesting POV.

posted by: Tom on August 20, 2009 1:22pm

I think the Anon show has officially jumped the shark by the looks of that last comment.

Anon, you should go back to making up statistics - stay with your strengths, my friend.

posted by: streever on August 21, 2009 5:39am

Mark,

1) No, I feel we have the right to have opinions.
2) No. I was making the point that “Norton Street” doesn’t do anything, because it’s not a human. It’s just a name.

Anon has jumped the shark—yet again.

posted by: streever on August 21, 2009 5:41am

and Mark, it only took me over a year to get this, but you’re jealous that I’m on BZA. I hear you. I’m sorry for you.

Literally folks this man has e-mailed me since last October with snide comments about it. I think he’s gotten obsessed.

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